Quiet BPD: Part l

The often overlooked and misdiagnosed subtype of Borderline Personality Disorder.

I’ve started three essays this month. Two are in their illegible, incomprehensible draft form. The third is powered by a level of anger that I don’t want to put into the world, not today. I’ve also slowly been gathering information from my readings about Quiet Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). I started that project back in May with the intention of bringing awareness to the lesser known subtype of BPD, which is also sometimes called Discouraged BPD.

It’s a little funny how the three essays are unrelated, yet if I edit them in a specific way, with solid transitions and credibility, I can actually just Frankenstein them all together to become a longer essay about Quiet BPD. Or perhaps a book. This disorder is something I had been healing through for years, piece by piece, before I even knew that it was my way of operating. I had heard of the term because a close relative has the same disorder, but hers is not Quiet - not in the slightest. Our inner worlds operate similarly but our outward presentations are wildly different.

Have you ever heard of the phenomenon of fight or flight? There are two more - freeze and fawn. When you think of a person with BPD, I would bet a dollar you are thinking of the Petulant Subtype - which has characteristics of outward anger and irritability, insistent demanding, and aggression. They would likely fight when triggered. Any person who has met me will look at that and say, “that is not Matty at all,” and they would be correct. Quiet BPD has characteristics of being painfully shy, clingy, and dependent. That sounds more accurate, right? I have, of course, pushed through some of these things through my recovery and healing journey. However, it is the inner world of a Borderline that truly resonates.